Bill Ackman
speaker
1,217 appearances
6 recordings
6 series
first heard Feb 2024
last heard 3 Jun
Bill Ackman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
And it was worth a lot more than where it was trading, but it needed an activist to really unlock the value. And we were, in fact, going out of business and didn't have the time or the resources to pursue it. So I sold it to Carl Icahn. And I sold it to him at a premium to where the stock was trading. I think the stock was like 66. I sold it to him for 80, but it was worth about 150.
And I said, look, and part of the deal was Carl's like, look, I'll give you schmuck insurance. I'll make sure you don't look bad. And I had another deal at a higher price without Schmuck insurance, but I deal with Carl at a lower price with Schmuck insurance.
And the way the Schmuck insurance went, he said, look, Bill, if I sell the stock in the next three years, you know, for a higher price, I'll give you 50% of my profit. That's a pretty good deal. So we made that deal. And because I was dealing with Carl Icahn, who had a reputation for being difficult, I was very focused on the agreement. And we didn't want him to be able to be cute.
So the agreement said... If we sell, if he sells or otherwise transfers his shares, and I, we came up with a definition include every version of sale. Okay. Cause you know, it's Carl. Uh, well he then, uh, buys the stake and then makes a bid for the company and, you know, plan is for him to get the company and he bids like 120 a share and the company hires Morgan Stanley to sell itself. Okay.
And he raises his bid to 125 and the 130 eventually gets sold. I don't remember the exact price. Let's say $145 a share. And Carl's not the winning bidder. And he sells his stock or loses or transfers his shares. So he owes actually our investors the difference between 145 and 80 times 50%. And I had like, you know, lawyers never like you to put like a arithmetic example.
I put like a formula, you know, like out of a math book in the documents. So there can be no confusion. It was only an eight page, really simple agreement. So the deal closes and he's supposed to pay us in two business days or three business days. I wait a few business days. No money comes in. I call Carl. I'm like, Carl, congratulations on the Hollywood Realty. Thanks, Bill.
I said, Carl, I just want to remind you, I know it's been a few years, but we have this agreement. Remember the Schmuck insurance? It's like, yeah. I said, well, you owe us our schmuck insurance. He said, what do you mean? I didn't sell my shares. I said, do you still have the shares? He says, no. I said, well, what happened to them?
Well, the company did a merger for cash and they took away my shares, but I didn't sell them. You understand what happened. So I said, Carl, I'm going to have to sue you. He said, Sue me. I'm going to sue you. He says. So I sued him. And the legal system in America can take some time. And what he would do is we sued and we won in the whatever, New York Supreme Court. And then he appealed.
And you can appeal like six months after the case. We waited to the 179th day and they would appeal. And then we fought it at the next level. And then he would appeal. And he appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Of course, the Supreme Court wouldn't take the case. It took years. Now we had, as part of our agreement, we got 9% interest on the money that he owed us.
So I viewed it as my Carl Icahn money market account with a much higher interest rate. And eventually I won. What was the amount? Tiny. Now it was material to my investors. So my first fund I wound it down, but I wanted to maximize everything for my investors, right? These are the people back me at 26 years old. I was right out of business school and no experience and they supported me.
So I'm going to go to the end of the earth for them. And four and a half million relative to our fund at the end was maybe 400 million. So it wasn't a huge number, but it was a big percentage of what was left after I sold all our liquid security. So I was fighting for it. So we've got four and a half million plus interest for eight years or something. That's how long the litigation took.
So we got about double. So he owed me $9 million, which to Carl Icahn, who had probably a $20 billion net worth at the time, this was nothing. But to me, it was like, okay, this is my investor's money. I'm going to get it back. And so, you know, eventually we won. Eventually he paid. And then he called me. He said, Bill, congratulations.
Now we can be friends and we can, we can invest, do some investing together. I'm like, Carl,
I'm not that kind of person generally, but, uh, you know, he made eight years to pay me, not me, even me, my investors, money they owed. And so I, yeah. So he probably didn't like that. So he kind of hung around in the weeds waiting for an opportunity. And then from there, I, you know, started Pershing.
We had a kind of straight line up, you know, we're up in the first 12 years, we could do nothing wrong. Then Valiant, uh, Herbalife, right? He sees an opportunity and he buys the stock. He figures he's going to run me off the road. And so that was the beginning of that. And kind of the moment, and I think it's the, I'm told by CNBC, it's the most watched segment in business television history.
They're interviewing me about the Herbalife investment on CNBC. And then Carl Icahn calls into the show. And we have kind of a interesting conversation where he calls me all kinds of names and stuff. So it was a moment. It was a moment in my life.
He didn't yet disclose he had a stake. Yeah. But he was just telling me how stupid I was to be short this company.
No. I generally have no regrets because I'm very happy with where I am now. And I feel like... You know, it's a bit like, you know, you step on the butterfly in the forest and the world changes because every action has a reaction.
You know, if you're happy with who you are, where you are in life, every decision you've made, good or bad, over the course of your life got you to precisely where you are. It wouldn't change anything. You said you lost money on Herbalife. So what, so he did the long-term battle.
What he did is he got on the board of the company and used the company's financial resources plus his stake in the business to squeeze, squeeze us. And a squeeze in short selling is where you restrict the supply of the securities so that there's a scarcity. And then you encourage people to buy the stock and you drive the stock up.
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